Ryanair announced this morning it had ordered 22 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and had options on another 78 in a €5.5 billion deal.
The announcement came shortly after the airline unveiled a deal to buy Dutch airline KLM's budget carrier Buzz for €23.9 million, marking a new milestone in the consolidation in the no-frills airlines industry.
The Boeing order came less than a year after Ryanair announced a record aircraft order for 150 Boeing 737-800s.
"In addition to the 103 firm orders already placed, Ryanair have added 22 further firm orders and increased its option orders by 78 to 125," the Dublin-based airline said in a statement.
"This will, over the next eight years, give Ryanair a total fleet of 250 Boeing 737-800s, giving Ryanair the youngest aircraft fleet in Europe and the second largest operator of the most successful jetliner in the world, behind Southwest in the US," it added.
Ryanair said earlier when announcing the Buzz deal that KLM had agreed to take back all the non-Boeing planes - BAE Systems's BAE 146 aircraft - in the mixed Buzz fleet.
The deal is a significant win for Boeing, which has been slashing jobs in its commercial aircraft division since the global airline industry slumped after the September 11th attacks in the United States in 2001.
The announcement came just a day after Boeing said it expected to deliver about 280 airplanes this year, against an estimate of 275-285.
AFP